Nathans is suing former Long Island Ducks player Jose Offerman and the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League for injuries sustained in a charging the mound incident in a 2007 game between the two teams. Nathans is seen here with his wife, Kate Lawrence, and attorney Craig Smith. less

Nathans is suing former Long Island Ducks player Jose Offerman and the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League for injuries sustained in a charging the mound incident in a 2007 game between the two teams. ... more

Nathans is suing former Long Island Ducks player Jose Offerman and the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League for injuries sustained in a charging the mound incident in a 2007 game between the two teams. Nathans is seen here with his wife, Kate Lawrence. less

Nathans is suing former Long Island Ducks player Jose Offerman and the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League for injuries sustained in a charging the mound incident in a 2007 game between the two teams. ... more

BRIDGEPORT -- From his days playing T-ball as a little kid, Johnathan Nathans was focused on playing in the major leagues.

That dream ended on the evening of Aug. 14, 2007, when the Bridgeport Bluefish catcher was injured in a bizarre on-field bat attack that is the subject of a civil case being heard this week in U.S. District Court here. Nathans, now an attorney in Portland, Maine, is suing Jose Offerman, the man who swung the bat, and Offerman's team, the Long Island Ducks, for $4.8 million.

"I didn't get to leave the game on my own terms," Nathans said Wednesday, turning to the jury box. "He took a bat to my head and ended my career."

In the second inning of the game between the Bluefish and the Ducks, Offerman was struck on his left leg by a pitch thrown by Bluefish pitcher Matt Beech. Offerman, in a moment of anger, charged the mound, swinging his bat, and Nathans followed him there in an attempt to protect his pitcher.

Nathans testified that during the fracas that followed -- lasting for only a few seconds by all accounts -- he was struck by Offerman's bat on the back-right side of his head. Beech, a left-handed pitcher, had the middle finger broken on his right hand. Nathans continued to catch, but said he soon noticed that things did not seem right.

"I was giving Matt confusing signs and every light in the stadium seemed super bright, like lasers," Nathans said, adding that he was transported to Bridgeport Hospital after the game for an examination and that he has been suffering from dizziness, nausea, weight loss, headaches and sensitivity to lights and noise ever since.

"I haven't gone a day without symptoms since Aug. 14, 2007," Nathans said.

Wednesday was Nathans' day to tell his story as his lawyers tossed him questions on everything from Nathans' Little League days to the Offerman incident.

The former catcher grew up in Warwick, N.Y., a small Hudson Valley farming town. His first team was the Whalers, his T-ball squad, and he even began weight training while still a young kid with the Hulk Hogan Workout Set that his dad got for him.

He played for various Boston minor league squads in Ft. Myers, Fla.; Augusta, Ga.; Portland, Maine and Lowell, Mass.

But after a separated shoulder, his career began to come apart.

In January 2005 he got a call from the head of player development for the Red Sox. Boston no longer had any use for him.

So Nathans found work playing for various independent league teams. There was the North Shore Spirit, the Lancaster Barnstormers, the Newark Bears and finally the Bridgeport Bluefish.

During that time, Nathans said he hoped he would be picked up by the majors again, but the bat injury prevented that from ever happening, he said.

On Tuesday, David LaPoint, the former manager for both the Ducks and the Bluefish, testified that Nathans "was a terrible" baseball player.

"How did it feel when Mr. LaPoint called you a terrible baseball player yesterday?" his lawyer, Craig Smith, asked.

"It hurt," Nathans said.

Previous testimony examined baseball's unwritten rules; one of these says that a player can expect to get hit by a pitch after he steals a base with an eight-run lead. That was not the case in this game, although Beech was pitching poorly that night and it was Offerman who smacked his the first pitch over the fence.

The case is being heard in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport before Judge Warren W. Eginton.

The attack was one of the rare instances in professional sport in which local police intervened during a game. Offerman was arrested by Bridgeport police immediately after the attack, a move that caught the league -- and perhaps all of professional sports -- off-guard.

The charges against Offerman, who grew up in the Dominican Republic, were later dropped after he applied for accelerated rehabilitation and spent two years on probation.